Alexander Brunet Interview

Alexander Brunet is a Senior here at Colorado State University studying Business. Unlike most students though Alexander doesn’t spend his weekends and nights partying it up or going to football games. In his free time he is working on his craft as much as he can. Alexander is a stand up comedian. Mr. Brunet has been doing stand up since his freshman year of high school. Starting out with high school talent shows and open mics. Now that he is in college and of legal drinking age. His venues have become more professional. Performing regularly at The Comedy Fort here in Fort Collins, as well as, driving an hour up to Denver to perform his sets. He plans on doing comedy full time after college. Using his degree in business as a “backup.”

Q: What got you so interested in comedy from an early age?

A: Well ever since I was a kid I was bullied heavily all throughout school. For many various things. And I hit my growth spurt in eighth grade and went from five foot one to five foot five. So, I really wasn’t about to pick a fight with anyone. Which is how I started to use comedy as my defense mechanism. I would sit alone at home every night before bed and just listen to any sort of comedy specials I could get my hands on. My real true mentors of comedy were people like John Mulaney, Bill Burr, and Dave Chapelle. I would fall asleep to their albums most nights. I sort of went crazy with it. I could pretty much recite every joke from every Bill Burr special by heart. Then when high school rolled around there were opportunities to perform in front of my peers and I seized every single one I could.

Q: What does your joke writing process look like?

A: Now I don’t know if you can put this in your little assignment but my best joke telling space is alone in my room with a joint in my hand absolutely loosing my mind. The nice part at least for me is that I have to write new jokes every week. So, usually a lot of what I write about is just certain observations I’ve made throughout the week and what not. But, I feel like just with every other kind of writing it comes with short little spurts of genius. Followed by hours of garbage. You just have to put in the time to find the gems honestly.

Q: What has been the most challenging part of stand up comedy for you?

A: The fear of bombing is of course always on my mind, but I have been doing this gig for almost eight years now so I’ve bombed a lot. I’ve also gotten exponentially better of the years as well I would say. So i guess for me the most challenging part of stand up is staying consistent with it. Writing and performing comedy is a lot like working out. You have to do it every week or you start to get flabby and sad. And, if i went a couple of weeks without doing stand up my jokes and my stage presence would be so much worse than it is right now. Luckily though, the stakes of stand up are so high that its a great motivator to not lay off the breaks

Q: Where is your favorite place to perform and why?

A: Thats kind of a tricky question to answer but I will give you two answers. My favorite place to go to every week and work on my material is right here in town at The Comedy Fort. Its sort of my “safe space” if you will. All my friends are there all the time and the club owner loves me and everything. But I will tell you the coolest place I ever got to perform was opening up for T.J. Miller at The Comedy Works in Denver. That was surreal and T.J. Miller was a super cool guy as well.

Q: What are your future plans for comedy?

A: Well first I have to finish up all of my classes and get the piece of paper here in May. After that I plan to move to Denver and try to work my way into the the comedy scene there. I’ve met a couple of club owners up there already. I just really can’t wait to get up there. Once i take over the Denver comedy scene I want to move to either New York or Los Angelas to try and make it big. But i have a long way to go before then.

Q: What is your favorite part about doing stand up comedy?

A: Getting paid for doing stand up is unreal. When I opened for T.J. Miller I was paid three hundred dollars for the whole night and it felt like I had committed a crime. It was so much money to me at the time. But for real my favorite part abut doing stand up is the rush you get when you are really killing it in a room. You talk to anybody who is a comedian and we are all drug addicts for that feeling. We always have been and we always will be.

Q: What advice would you give to anybody who is interested in stand up comedy?

A: I would definitely say don’t be too hard on yourself. You have about six thousand terrible ideas before you have one good one. That’s the worst part about stand up comedy is that you have to go through so much trial and error and it all has to be in front of a room full of people. I would also say you are for sure going to bomb it’s going to happen at some point and it sucks but the people who can bomb one night and then get back on stage the next and kill it are the people that make it. Finally, I will say don’t be afraid to write and say whatever the hell you want. Never ever censor yourself or your ideas. If someone is offended at your ha ha laugh show its a reflection on them not on you. Thanks so much for interviewing me I had a grand ol’ time!

If you are interested in watching any of Alexanders shows you can go visit The Comedy Forts website or you can email him at his email abrunet@gmail.com